How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell, page 108 by Sara Cone Bryant
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have to do any work at all,-- she was just a pet dog. She seemed very happy and she was always good.
But after a while, the family noticed something odd, something very strange indeed, about their pet. Every single Tuesday night, about nine o'clock, Wylie DISAPPEARED. They would look for her, call her,--no, she was gone. And she would be gone all night. But every Wednesday morning, there she was at the door, waiting to be let in. Her silky coat was all sweaty and muddy and her feet heavy with weariness, but her bright eyes looked up at her masters as if she were trying to explain where she had been.
Week after week the same thing happened. Nobody could imagine where Wylie went every Tuesday night. They tried to follow her to find out, but she always slipped away; they tried to shut her in, but she always found a way out. It grew to be a real mystery. Where in the world did Wylie go?
You never could guess, so I am going to tell you.
In the city near the town where the kind young men lived was a big market like (naming one in the neighbourhood). Every sort of thing was sold there, even live cows and sheep and hens. On Tuesday nights, the farmers used to come down from the hills with their sheep to sell, and drive them through the city streets into the pens, ready to sell on Wednesday morning; that was the day they sold them.
The sheep weren't used to the city noises and sights, and they always grew afraid and wild, and gave the farmers and the sheepdogs a great deal of trouble. They broke away and ran about, in everybody's way.
But just as the trouble was worst, about sunrise, the farmers would see a little silky, sharp- eared dog come trotting all alone down the road, into the midst of them.
And then!
In and out the little dog ran like the wind, round and about, always in the right place, driving--coaxing--pushing--making the sheep mind like a good school-teacher, and never frightening them, till they were all safely in! All the other dogs together could not